Earthquakes
by Loosely Divided
Summary: Wishes don't mean anything in the real world, Stiles knows that. Or where Stiles struggles to ground himself post Donovan. Tag to 5x05.


**It's short and sweet. Or bitter, I should say. A little thing I wrote because I wanted to know what would happen if Stiles vocalized and externalized his thoughts and feelings more.**

 **No beta. All mistakes are mine. Teen Wolf is also mine (I wish). Enjoy, and please tell me what you think. :)**

...

He dreams that Scott finds out about Donovan.

There's no comforting (unsurprisingly) and there's no yelling (surprisingly), just Scott staring at him with eyes that tell it all: betrayal disgust anger hate -

It's the hate that really hits him. It burns so bright and white hot and loud that it hurts to look at. Scott has a generally nice and calm demeanor; he forgives, says it's okay when it's not, always looks for the bright side when they're drowning in the darkness.

Allison. Aiden. Donovan. His mom. Countless others at the hospital, the police station. Scott throws it all back at Stiles' heart and they hit like bullets, tearing through him until he's on his knees in agony.

You're disgusting, Scott says. Worthless. Weak. Unwanted. Useless.

I know, Stiles whispers back.

You're a murderer.

Stiles doesn't have anything to say to that.

He wakes up at three in the morning, tears soaking his pillow. When he can't look Scott in the face at school, Stiles tells himself it's because if he did, Scott would see everything written in his eyes.

.

.

.

It's been a calm, boring, uneventful day at school. Relatively speaking.

Stiles hates it, because there's nothing to distract himself from the sight of Donovan choking on his own blood. His hands are trembling so badly he doesn't bother taking notes. They'd just become a mess. Like his life's turning out to be. When the group was parting ways at lunch, Scott had clapped Stiles on the shoulder in way of saying goodbye - his injured shoulder. He hadn't quite managed to hold in a gasp of pain. Scott had frozen, for a second, confused, but then Kira came up to him and Stiles had used the distraction to slip away into the growing crowd of students.

He'd have to come up with an excuse for that one. He slipped, and struck the hood of his Jeep with his shoulder? Like the clumsy idiot everyone sees him as? It would explain away the dent in his hood, too. But besides that, school had just been an exhausted blur of blank chalkboards blank faces blank minds -

Stiles pulls up into his driveway and turns off his engine. His hand freezes instead of pulling the key out. He sits there for a while, fingers drumming the wheel, turning the thought slowly seeding in his mind over, considering. What if he just, ran away from all this? He couldn't get rid of his problems, unless he got rid of himself. Removal from the situation. His tank is mostly full, and his dad won't be home for another five hours.

He could be out of Beacon County by then. Gone without a word, never looking back ever again.

It's tempting. Really tempting. He would just need to grab some clothes, and the $200 he has saved, and drive off. New life, clean slate. He doubts anyone would miss him anyways. He could get a job somewhere, maybe a cashier or an assistant to someone. He could go to Florida. New York. No, he could go to Europe.

He could go anywhere.

He could meet a girl who would never know of the blood on his hands. He could be somewhere where no one would look at him twice and remember he was the crazy sheriff's son who disappeared, then went off to Eichen House, then disappeared a second time, for almost a week. He could be somewhere where no one knew, stared, judged, whispered. Where no one knew he had been possessed by a nogitsune and killed countless people, blood he can never get off his hands no matter how hard he scrubs. Five minutes and he'd be on his way to a new life. All he had to was start driving. No problems, no monsters, nothing.

No family.

He thinks of his dad, worried sick, all alone in a big house meant for three. Stiles removes the key from the engine, and heads inside.

.

.

.

They're sitting at lunch, laughing at Malia's newest antics, or betting on how long that gross freshman couple that's all over each other will last. Bets don't climb higher than three weeks. Stiles laughs easily with them. For once, he feels more relaxed. No one knows a damn thing, and right now the sky is clear and there's a perfect breeze blowing across the school courtyard and everyone's smiling, which nowadays is a rarity.

And then Lydia stops with a funny look on her face. And then she asks Stiles, why doesn't he have any food? Everyone stares at Stiles, and his moment of bliss and calm is gone. Stiles looks down at the table, Scott with his half-eaten sandwich, Kira with her empty sushi container, Malia with that cafeteria junk, Lydia with her pink lunchbox already packed up and by her side. And Stiles' blank space of table.

He shrugs and says he isn't hungry. What he doesn't say is that he can't bring himself to eat because he gets overwhelmingly nauseous, because every time he looks at meat, he feels like Donovan looked at him and saw exactly that, meat. What he doesn't say is that he can barely eat, because theres a little voice at the back of his head, reminding him about who deserves that luxury of food and air and life much more then Stiles does, ever will. Everyone continues looking at Stiles, and he shifts uncomfortably from the heavy weight of their gazes. They're trying to pierce through the layer of armour he's built around himself, and Stiles can't stand it, because all that's left behind the mask is a little boy who's scared, a little boy who wished he had a mother who didn't hate him until the very end, wished for a normal life, wished he didn't have murder weighing on his conscience every second of every hour of every day.

Wishes don't mean anything in the real world, Stiles knows that.

And if he purposely switches the subject to the Dread Doctors, no one says anything. And creepy once-human things that perform experiments and mutilate people are certainly more important than the fact that Stiles skipped lunch.

.

.

.

"Let's meet at the library after school? We need to find out more about these chimeras. Okay?" Scott looks around the group for confirmation.

Stiles feels his heart stutter and stop. He can't go back to that library. Just thinking about it brings back the pain in his shoulder, the blood. Donovan. Oh god. He can't go back in there. They'll know. They'll figure it out.

"I actually can't make it today, I'm helping my dad out at the station, sorting through all the victim's rap sheets, to see if there's any connections that way," he fumbles, hoping his voice isn't noticeably trembling. Even to werewolf ears.

Malia frowns, looking a bit put out. "You said you were free this evening."

Stiles freezes - crap - and makes a joke about how's always free for that kind of thing. The whole group groans good-heartedly, but all Stiles can manage to feel is relief.

.

.

.

He's having dinner with Malia and her dad, and it's about ten types of awkward. More than that time he had to cover for Scott _and_ Allison doing 'saving the world' things, to a more than skeptical Melissa. Before she knew.

Not as bad as coming back to school after spending a week in Eichen and then promptly disappearing.

The rabbit's burnt and Malia's dad repeatedly gives warning glares to Stiles, as if to show who's in charge. Malia doesn't notice either.

"Caught this rabbit myself, found it struggling in one of those nets all strung up, poor thing," Mr. Tate says, giving a pointed stare at Stiles, one that seems to promise the same fate if he ever crosses him. Stiles swallows hard, feeling slightly like a fish out of water.

"I ate rabbits a lot in the spring. Raw, of course." Malia announces to the dinner table, releasing a cloud of tension into the middle of the table. Stiles and her dad look down at their plates, shuffle food around. No one talks.

Malia still doesn't understand the awkwardness that entails after bringing up her years as a coyote. Especially in front of her father, who mourned her death for every single one of those years.

"Uh, rabbit's good," Stiles says awkwardly in a rather failed attempt to diffuse the tense situation. Malia's dad jumps at it - thank god - and talks about how he made it, what spices to use, maybe he can show Malia sometime.

"Have you ever killed a rabbit, Stiles?" he asks out of no where. Stiles almost chokes on his green beans.

"No, no. Have definitely never killed a rabbit," Stiles says rushedly. "Not really my thing."

"Ah, well. It's not too bad, the way I do it. Clean cut across the throat, that way they feel almost no pain. Wouldn't want them to suffer, would we?" Malia's dad says with a little smile. Stiles is beginning to regret coming here, the man is very unsettling.

"You would never cause anything or anyone pain, would you Stiles," Mr. Tate asks.

Donovan flashes in his mind. Stiles tries to force the image of him hanging limply off a pole out of his mind. Or the image of his mother screaming at him. Or the one of his dad yelling at him. Or Allison. Aiden. Plunging a sword into his best friend's stomach. The hospital. The police station. _Coach_ , damnit.

His mother standing on a cold hospital roof screaming at Stiles. Telling her only child it's his fault. It's all his fault.

"Stiles has never hurt anyone, Dad," Malia says around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

Stiles thinks he manages to twist his grimace into a smile.

.

.

.

He's almost made it home when his stomach decides otherwise and he throws up all over Ms. Staph's petunias. He stands there, hunched over for a few minutes. Then he stands up, only to have nausea and vertigo take over, and this time he's lying on the sidewalk retching and sobbing.

He hates this. All of it. He'd kill himself in a second, but he knows he can't, because then who would be there to catch his father?

A jogger stops and asks if he's okay. He fakes his concern quite well, Stiles thinks distantly. He stands up unsteadily, wipes the vomit onto his sleeve, says, Yeah, I'm good, I'm okay. No worries.

I'm just fine.

.

.

.

Donovan, biting his shoulder with that weird mouth thing on his hand. Donovan, grabbing Stiles from behind, shoving him into a bookcase. Threatening to eat his legs. Those eyes looking at his with calculated rage. The look of someone who knows they're going to get what they want, and no one can stop them. The look of someone who knows they're invincible.

Donovan, choking on his own blood from being impaled with a scaffolding pole, pierced right through a lung.

Blood covering his hands, the pole, his car. Scott looking at Stiles and whispering how he hates him. His father, his father looking so disappointed and angry.

His mother shaking her head disappointedly, as if she was expecting him to turn out this way all along, just waiting for the moment to say, I told you so. Waiting for Stiles to finally be the wreck that crumbles upon itself.

Scott stabbing him through the lung, just like Donovan, while everyone watches with pitiless eyes. It's all your fault, Stiles. It's all your fault.

Stiles plunges into consciousness with his eyes wide open and his fist pressed to his mouth to stop a scream from escaping. He sits there, trying to calm his breathing. Then he waits out the hours, listening to music, clicking next before a song is even halfway through, breathing heavily.

His hands are still trembling when he gets to school. He tells Lydia it's the Adderall.

.

.

.

"I envy you," Liam says the next day out of nowhere. Stiles thinks if he raises his eyebrows any higher they'll climb into his hair and stay there.

"Really," Stiles says. Does this kid really not know? The Nogitsune, killing Allison, stabbing Scott, shooting Coach, killing Aiden, killing Donovan. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

"Yeah, I mean, you're just so unfazed by everything. You're just a human, but you do everything we do," Liam says, then hesitates, uncertain. "Almost, I guess. You can't fight," he adds tentatively, then blanches slightly. Stiles narrows his eyes slightly, trying to decide if that was an insult or just a back-handed compliment.

"I didn't mean - well not like that," Liam blusters, "you fight behind the scenes, and stuff."

"I don't see what you're getting at here, Liam," Stiles says tiredly, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

"J-just that you seem to take everything like it's no big deal! My best friend is a werewolf? Okay, no big deal. A-and Mason, too. He just goes along with it. He finds out I'm a werewolf and his first reaction is wow, cool. Then I just feel like I'm freaking out about everything like some little kid..." Liam trails off and stands there awkwardly, looking down at his shoes.

Oh, Stiles thinks. The kid wants _advice_. From _him_ , of all people. He laughs at that. Liam looks back up, confused. "You think we just worked together perfectly from the start? No, it really wasn't like that. That first full moon, I'm trying to convince Scott he's a werewolf, and he gets so mad he pushes me into a wall. I was coughing for a week. Back then we didn't know what we were up against. And then he left for the party with - with Allison." Stiles' heart jumps a bit at her name. He stops, shakes his head to clear his thoughts.

"My point is, it was a bumpy road to get where we are now. And we all still have our problems. They don't just go away, you know. Because we have each other, or something sappy like that. We're not happy people who think we can save the world, because honestly? We can't. No matter how hard we try. We still fail." Stiles feels more than a little bitter as he says those words.

Liam looks at Stiles with apprehension. "But you seem happy," he says quietly. Stiles looks down at the tiled floor of the hallway.

There's nothing to say to that. Stiles hasn't been truly happy since before his mom got sick, since before his best friend got tugged into a whirlwind of supernatural and magic and love and left him behind in the dust. Since before he was possessed by a dark spirit and killed dozens of people.

But Liam wasn't really aware of most of that. Sure, he would have heard about, say, the police station being goddamn blown up, but he probably didn't know it was all Stiles' fault. And he didn't need to know. Stiles doesn't think he could manage having yet another innocent look at him like that. The truth that he's a murderer, the truth that no amount of soap and skin scrubbed raw can change who he is. Stiles turns, and walks away.

"Stiles." Liam's voice seems to carry a note of desperation, and it makes Stiles hesitate and turn around, look Liam in the eye. "You don't have to pretend to be happy," Liam says quietly, and Stiles can see the weight, the heaviness growing behind his eyes. The innocence being shredded, replaced by the weariness that comes from seeing how unfair the world is. Weariness and wariness, put there by him.

Stiles just shrugs, and says "Yeah, I do." Then he turns and walks away as hard and fast as he can, and pretends he isn't blinking back tears.

.

.

.

"Stiles."

He's sitting on his bed doing homework, because he had decided he didn't, in fact, want to join the group at the library after school. He looks up, and there is Scott, standing in the doorway of his room looking grim and sad, and a veil of anger overtop it all. Stiles feels his heart stop, sees all his nightmares coming true. Like a film you used to watch everyday when you were little, but haven't seen in years. You know how it's going to play out, even if you don't remember the specifics.

 _Oh god he knows._

And Stiles suddenly finds himself struggling to breathe normally. He looks up, and right into Scott's eyes from across the bedroom. Scott leans against the doorframe, eyes narrowed.

 _Oh god_.

"Are you okay, Stiles? Your heartbeat is going crazy," Scott asks, seemingly worried. Stiles isn't an idiot, Scott doesn't care. Any second now, he'll start flinging horrible accusations and insults and it'll beat Stiles down but he knows it'll all be true, every last word.

"I'm fine," he says, rather stiffly. He takes guilt and satisfaction in equal measures as he sees Scott flinch ever so slightly. _Good_.

There's an awkward pause, the two of them staring at each other, only a few feet away, though the distance between the two seems so much further these days. A chasm that's so wide and deep and dark that it snaps up any bridge that's trying to leap the distance.

"So...uhh, can I come in?" Scott says, as if unsure he still can. Stiles hesitates, then nods. Scott comes in and sits down on the bed. He's still not smiling, which means a serious conversation, and Stiles hates serious conversations so he begins to ramble about some theory he has for the Dread Doctors, that bitch of an English teacher, and has Scott tried that new burger place by -

"Stiles," Scott says again, and the look on his face is enough to stop him midsentence. Scott look down and fiddles with the frayed hem of his shirt.

Stiles takes a deep breath.

"Liam came up to me today."

 _Oh_. Stiles suppresses a sigh of relief. Then he remembers what he stupidly ranted to Liam yesterday, the misplaced product of pent-up frustration, and stiffens. _Shit_.

"He said that you told him about my first full moon, and that I pushed you into a wall." Scott lifts his head and looks directly at Stiles.

"Stiles, you never told me I hurt you that day. Why didn't you say anything?"

Stiles gives a weak laugh. "There was kind of a lot going on." Scott doesn't smile. Stiles sighs and shifts on his bedspread, feeling uncomfortable with all the scrutiny. "Look it was a long time ago, okay? It wasn't a big deal."

"Then why did you bring it up! Why do you never say if you need something? You put everyone else in front of you and cover up your own issues! You could be bleeding out and never say a word! How many times have you been hurt because of us, Stiles? Tell me the truth for once. Please." Scott looks at Stiles, eyes pleading. As if Stiles is the one falling apart.

Maybe he is.

"It doesn't matter, Scott!" Stiles snaps. "Last time I needed help I was possessed by a nogitsune and killed 48 people. I think I'll survive papercuts."

Scott seems taken aback, as if he never considered that. Of course he didn't, Stiles thinks bitterly.

"And yes, I did bring it up with Liam. I don't know why, okay? Maybe it's because I'm stressed, and there's a lot going on, and I'm just so _tired_ , okay?" Stiles is breathing heavily and rests his head against the blue wall, feeling drained. He just bottles up his anger these days, until it explodes, and it tends to explode quite frequently nowadays, in short little bursts he can't seem to contain. Stiles closes his eyes against the world. The look on Scott's face would be his undoing, everything would pour out. And that's one of the last things Stiles ever wants to happen.

He hears Scott shift on the bed. "Stiles?" he whispers, "are you okay?"

Stiles doesn't answer, because it's a stupid question and they both know it.

"What happened, Stiles? What happened," Scott says quietly, as if unsure he wants to hear the answer.

Donovan happened, Stiles wants to say. It would be so easy, to just open his mouth and say "I accidentally killed Donovan." Just those four words, and he could stop with the flitting around and hiding things from everyone and constantly worrying _what if they find out, what if they find out?_

But Stiles knows that deep down he's a coward at heart, always has been, so instead he hangs his head because he's failing Scott, he's failing himself and the pack and his parents, but failing seems to be the only thing he's good at, anyways.

"I think you should go," Stiles says, because he really can't have this conversation with Scott right now. Or maybe ever. But that's the problem with the truth, it always comes out, big and bloody and messy and painful.

Scott sighs and opens his mouth to say something, before he catches the look in Stiles' eyes: defeat. So instead he gets up and walks to the open doorway, because, Scott thinks, maybe it was him who put that look there. Stiles has his eyes closed again, still slumped against his bedroom wall when Scott turns around.

"Stiles?", he asks, as if repeating his name enough times would get Stiles to open his mouth. It almost does, Stiles hesitates. He wants to open his mouth and say what he needs to so badly. But then he remembers dreams of Scott yelling at him, shunning him, ripping him apart, hating him forever, the stares of pity from some, and hatred from others. The looks his dad would give him.

No. Stiles would rather die than have that happen.

"You should go," Stiles says, eyes still closed. He can hear Scott still shifting in the doorway. "Please," Stiles whispers, and he can't help his voice breaking on that word. But it must be what pushes Scott, because he finally leaves, if reluctantly.

When he's sure Scott's gone, he crumples in on himself and tries not to cry.

...

 **Might expand on this, might not. Please tell me what you thought, I haven't written anything in** ** _months_** **.**

 **And wow, this is a depressing piece. I wanted to write how I thought Stiles was feeling afterwards, and blatantly ignoring all plot advances that happened after Donovan, on the show. Oh well. It's fan fiction, I shall do as I please. (And please please if you see any typos or mistakes point them out to me because I am a perfectionist.)**

 **Ily all**


End file.
